


Nick & Nat's Unusual Adventure

by lilibel, sirona



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Aliens, Backstory, Blood, Canon-Appropriate Violence, Death of a Parent, F/M, Falling In Love, Flirting, Japan, Karaoke, Romance, Snark, Spies, Team, Yakuza, baby agents, badassery, or what passes for romance between international spies set on one-upping each other, physical disfigurement, the story of Nick's SHIELD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-02
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2018-02-15 20:54:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2243187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilibel/pseuds/lilibel, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirona/pseuds/sirona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So this is how you fall into decisions that shape the rest of your life - you hear a cheeky little bastard snarking at you over comms, and somehow decide that trusting them is a good idea. (The fact that it turns out to be one has no bearing on the matter.)</p><p>Or, the story of how Nick met Natasha and S.H.I.E.L.D. shaped itself around them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nick & Nat's Unusual Adventure

**Author's Note:**

> Please be aware that I have mixed and meshed and twisted Marvel 'verses together so much that I don't even know what's which anymore. This has elements of MCU and Agents of SHIELD and Marvel 616, I have played very fast and loose with ages, and incorporated a lot of different canons into this story. I would like to ask you to suspend disbelief and let yourself be carried along for the adventure.
> 
> This story was written for the ARBB over on lj. First of all, this story would obviously not exist without Lilibel's brilliant, gorgeous art, which incepted me from the second I saw it and would not let me go. <3 Enormous thanks are due to Lanyon, for betaing this story and checking my comics canon and being so very encouraging and enthusiastic about it. <3 Also, many thanks to RosaLui who took the time to answer my Japanese questions and correct my abysmal vocabulary. You are a star, bb. <3 And, as always, all my love to CinnamonAnna and 17Pansies for being the best and listening to me as I rambled on and on about this story. I don't know what I'd do without you, darlings. <3
> 
> All of Lilibel's gorgeous art can be found here [on tumblr](http://lilibel.tumblr.com/post/96379779387/nick-nats-unusual-adventure-art-done-for-the).

  


**1\. Tokyo, 1972**

"Now, fellas, there's no need for that," Marcus says, backing away from the three formerly-unassuming civilians who have just been revealed to have appendages where no appendages ought to be found. The one at the front blinks at him through milky-white eyes that Marcus might have felt inclined to be sympathetic about, if they weren't malevolently focused on him.

Okay, so this maybe looks a little bad.

He ducks as fast as he can behind an upended table previously showcasing beautifully displayed sushi, and cringes at the jet of what is apparently _acid_ , what the _hell_ , that arches overhead, spilling droplets of melted plastic against his side and making his supposedly super-hardcore-double-strength-canvas uniform smoke accusingly. In his ear, a static burst before a local-sounding voice advises, "On your right!" with sufficient urgency that Marcus follows the hastily-interpreted instructions without a second thought. He rolls over when he lands, twisting back and firing viciously on the space he previously occupied. The tentacle that would have taken his head off, had he still been there, flails before flopping over on the floor, severed through by his bullets. It spasms, leaking sluggishly – a smoking orange plasma that Marcus knows without being told he should avoid at all costs.

"Thanks," he pants, popping his head quickly over the counter he'd taken refuge behind and casing as much of the place as he can through the screaming, steaming chaos. When those white brothers landed on the moon a couple years ago, this was really not the result Marcus had expected. "Got any more advice? And while you're at it, got any damn idea what the hell those things are?"

"Left, through the hatch, then at your two o'clock."

No reference made to his other enquiry, which could mean anything, really. Marcus has no idea who it is that's helping him, but he doesn't hesitate to follow the directions. He can't stay here, that's plain as day, and the civilians need time to get clear. His only choice is to engage the hostiles as the only person left in the place who can. His supervising agent is lying on the floor, a bullet through her head staining her steel-grey, helmet-like haircut a thick, violent red, and their diplomatic aide has probably long scrammed – has probably set them up in the first place, Marcus thinks darkly. This person, whoever it is, is his only hope of stopping this mess from escalating. Not to mention that without – his? her? – assistance, he would be a smear on the floor right at this moment.

He ducks through the hatch on the left, immediately plastering his back against the wall and shooting at the creatures he finds at his right. He tries to aim for a non-vital place – they still need to question them and find out what they actually are – but for all he knows, he could be shooting them through their hearts. He has no idea what species he's dealing with here – except that its very certainly not the Yakuza representatives they had been expecting.

If this is a set-up, though, he has the definite feeling that the Americans are not the only target.

Something drips on his shoulder, and he clenches his teeth not to scream at the pain while he empties his clip into the gawping maw of a creature that he had stupidly missed. So they can hang from ceilings. Useful to know – if he ever makes it out of here in any condition to present a report.

His father was right, damn it. The CIA really are useless – but it was that, or the FBI, and they are even worse. Marcus is coming to the realisation that he could probably run a better intelligence organisation than anything currently out in the international arena. A chilling thought – but something to think about, nonetheless.

"Ooh, that looks nasty," his anonymous helper remarks, hissing air through their teeth. Irritation bubbles in Marcus' throat; he replaces his empty clip, crab-walks past the steaming remains of his attackers to the other side of the room, and looks out of the door into a kitchen that is not as empty as it should be. A second later, he fires half of his new clip around the corner, smiling with grim satisfaction as something howls in pain and then thumps to the floor. A tentacle flops down in his field of vision, unrolling and then shriveling up.

"Gotcha, ya little fucker," Marcus growls quietly.

"No time for gloating, Sergeant! Up and in them!"

"At them, _at_ them," Marcus groans, faintly horrified at the thought of doing anything involving penetrating these things.

"Oh, is that how it goes?"

Marcus is gonna find that cheeky little asshole and rip them a new one – just as soon as he's done keeping himself alive.

"Sitrep," he snaps. Who knows where Agent Haruji got to, and whoever this is, they clearly have eyes up high on the battlefield.

"Customers are nearly cleared," the person says, a little breathless, muffled by the sound of close-range combat – and then there is a short silence as Marcus wonders what the living hell is going on. Because that? Was very definitely not a Japanese person speaking English. That was someone _pretending_ to be Japanese speaking English slipping up.

"Hell of a time you picked for identity porn," he mutters, eyeing the mostly-clear exit to the restaurant, where a last stray civilian stumbles through. "I got no damned idea what you look like, I don't care _who_ you are, so could you maybe stow the theatrics and help me get those things picked off before they descend on central Tokyo?"

There is silence in his ear for so long that Marcus figures whoever it was, they'd scrammed and left him to fend for himself without even one good eye in the shitstorm.

"Very well," the person says, no trace of their previous deception in their voice. It's still in that range that could designate a light tenor or a woman's voice raspy with smoke inhalation, so Marcus is stuck with the mystery of who exactly is helping him. "Civilians are all cleared – the ones that could still move, anyway. Two hostiles remaining, one behind the door at your far eleven, and one in the restaurant manager's office past the door the first one's guarding."

There is a pause, before the voice chokes. "N-no way. Tell me this isn't just your run-of-the-mill power struggle. This can't be happening. And it begs the question of exactly how long these things have been around without pinging any of our radars."

Well. His first real clue as to the identity of his assistant. Looks like he is dealing with a rival agency's operative, as stuck as him on a mission from hell. He thunks his head into the wall behind him, groaning. This was meant to be a routine negotiation for information, not a damn turf war. Why does this shit always happen to him? Or is it that the CIA's analysts are _really_ that clueless? At least his accidental partner sounds just as ticked-off as him about the current turn of events.

"Motherfucker," he mutters, creeping across the open space past the toilets, and puts the wall next to the last intersection of corridors at his back. "Right. Point me, will ya? Let's get this tidied up."

"And what is in it for me?" the voice inquires archly. "No skin off my nose if Tokyo's Yakuza get bruised and bloody-nosed over this. One might even say it'd be a desirable outcome."

Marcus just about manages not to thump his head into the wall again, as much as it might make him feel better. "And it would destabilise the region, not to mention put a nice shiny target on the back of every US operative, covert or no."

The unknown smartass makes a noise that Marcus is forced to conclude is amusement tinged with derision.

"You are making the mistake of assuming I care the least bit about that."

Ahah! Another clue. Definitely not American, then, likely not even Western European. Son of a bitch is playing a triple bluff on him, and Marcus doesn't even know whom he's supposed to be fencing with. And he thought he was the paranoid bastard. Moreover, he has _only just figured out_ he is being played, and played expertly. He finds himself faced with the unsettling realisation that he might be out of his league on this one. Granted, he is only several months into this placement with the CIA, and he isn't much more than a baby in espionage terms, but he'd thought he was better at thinking under pressure than that.

Doesn't mean he's a damn fool about it, though.

"Fine. What do you want for your assistance?" And here he is, negotiation terms of engagement with a rival agent while hiding from possibly extraterrestrial entities trying to break into a Yakuza boss' safe. His life is taking a sharp turn for the bizarre.

The operative huffs a laugh again. "Oh, Sergeant Johnson, you cannot even begin to cover what it takes to afford me," they purr. The noise slithers down Marcus' spine, making his gut warm. Aw, hell, if ever it wasn't the right time...

"However," the operative goes on," I find that I am... disinclined to get my hands dirty at this time. You may do the grunt work on this one."

"Damn gracious of you," Marcus growls, but obediently rolls up onto the balls of his feet and lunges left when he is told, snapping off two shots while he's still running. They pierce one of the goons through his shining, bulbous head, and catch the other in the gut.

Marcus files away the fact that this doesn't slow the second creature down even remotely as his first practical lesson on Us vs. Them. Walking upright on two legs and being in possession of a head in the usual place does not guarantee humanoid internal organs – check. He takes out the creature's knees and turns just in time to field the third, unannounced mark through its throat. It falls to the floor and thrashes, orange foam coming out of its beak-like mouth.

"Thanks for the heads-up," he snarks, not really expecting an answer as he thumbs his cell phone, trying to summon back-up.

"Oops?" his opponent says innocently. Marcus cautiously straightens, and when his head remains in place, he dares to take a closer look at his surroundings. Dust covers the floor, along with various debris from the previously quite nice restaurant, but it is blessedly empty of intruders. Marcus stows away his gun and connects the call, reporting on his location and asking for orders while he keeps an eye on the entrance out of habit. Which is how he catches a glimpse of a slight figure in a black catsuit, nearly indistinguishable through the destruction but for the tangle of titian-red curls haloing its head.

"Thanks, Sergeant," Marcus hears, watching light reflect off the figure's pale face as its mouth moves to shape the words. The purr is a touch more pronounced, but while the catsuit is tight, there is too much smoke and dust in the air for Marcus to be able to make the distinction of gender.

That is probably for the best. He can't afford to be aroused by what amounts to no more than a ghost – a slinky, competent, erudite, irritatingly charming ghost, granted, but all the same. Insubordination is not sexy, damn it.

"Thanks, yourself," he murmurs, but gets only a burst of static for his trouble.

Later, when the wrap-up crew finds out that the plans and security codes for the top secret US military base in Okinawa, the same ones that Marcus and his team had been sent in to negotiate for, have somehow gone missing from the locked, hidden safe in the manager's office, the burn of fury he feels for being taken for a ride doesn't last half as long as the admiration it leaves in its wake.

It takes three more days for him to wake up panting in the middle of the night, sweating and hard under his flimsy bedsheet, and blurt out, "How the hell did they know my name?"

\---

**2\. Okinawa, 1982**

Always in damned Japan, Marcus thinks despairingly. On the stage across from their booth, his latest recruits clown about and hang drunkenly onto each other, butchering 'It's Raining Men' to the inexplicable delight of their audience. Marcus stifles the urge to facepalm. He doubts his father ever had to deal with something as ridiculous as this bunch of morons.

Then again, Fury Senior used to hang out with Howard Stark, Dum Dum Dugan, and Emma Frost in the Sixties. It is entirely possible that he has seen much worse. In a moment of weakness, Marcus longs to call him and ask him for advice in handling tone-deaf trained killers.

It is at that moment that a very drunk Phil Coulson lands in his lap, overly-dramatic floppy limbs splayed across the leather seat of the karaoke booth.

"Beer me, Marcus," he whines, blinking his long black eyelashes over those ridiculous eyes.

"You're cut off, Coulson, effective immediately. How are you such a lightweight, I swear to god, May's half the size of you and she's already killing off a liter of vodka."

"She's got a hollow leg," Phil mutters, annoyed. "Or a hollow arm that only looks human. That'd explain the aim and the bone-breaking."

"How many times? There are no metal prosthetics advanced enough to look like real bare arms," Marcus growls, pushing Coulson off him. Coulson sprawls on the seat, all loose-limbed death in disguise smirking crookedly at him. It's only been two years since Marcus found him in that pathetic high school and tapped him for the new SHIELD recruiting program, and incidentally gave his steel trap of a brain something better to do than antagonise his Physics teachers into screaming breakdowns – and already Marcus can barely remember his life without him, or this makeshift crew of rapidly advancing baby deathtraps that have somehow bonded into a command unit around him.

"I heard the Soviets were experimenting with that real hardcore," Maria Hill shouts over the music, landing slightly less gracefully than usual on Coulson's other side.

"Experimenting, yes. Succeeding, no. Can you imagine how insufferable Stark would be if they beat him to it? The defense implications for SHIELD alone, not to mention the possibilities of weaponisation. He'd cream himself."

"Not a day goes by I don't pity Major Carter for having to put up with him," Hill declares flatly.

May and Blake choose that moment to screech their rendition to an end, to Marcus' intense gratitude. He winces when he thinks of the bill he's likely to get for this little unsanctioned escapade, but they _had_ just helped broker a neat training program with the Japanese. They deserve the night off.

Still, maybe they were getting tired? Maybe, if Marcus plays his cards right, he might manage to shepherd them back to base without bringing it down around them?

"Shots," Blake slurs loudly, throwing his arms in the air and pointing to the ceiling.

"Ooh, shots!" Maria howls, right next to Marcus' fucking ear. He throws her a murderous glare, then transfers it to a sniggering Melinda May when it slides off Hill's back like water off a duck – not that it works any better on May. Coulson breaks the moment when he scrambles upright between them and rushes past to join the stampede to the bar. For the briefest of moments, calm descends onto the table, and Marcus closes his eyes, sighing deeply. He's getting too old for this.

The first notes of 'I'll Be Seeing You' float through the air, soothing his weary heart. Without conscious thought, the core of his body unwinds, melts into a stillness of simply being that has for too long been absent from his life.

And then she starts to sing. Her voice is deep, throaty, husky like she has just thrown back a good finger of whiskey. Hardly daring to move lest he break the spell, Marcus cracks open his eyes. The woman on the stage is stunningly beautiful, the kind that makes people stop and blink and work to figure out if she's real. Red hair the color of poppies curls above her shoulders, the same shade as her luscious lips; she has a figure to make you long to trace it with your palms, wrapped in a simple black dress deceptively flared around her hips. The hand that holds the microphone is short-nailed and strong, and although she looks dainty and china-doll-breakable, there is something in the way she stands straight-backed and sure, center of gravity perfectly balanced on skyscraper heels, that needles recollection through Marcus' gray matter.

He has seen this woman before, and the knowledge of exactly _when and where_ comes to him when she takes a sultry step forward, leaning into the music as she tips her head to look directly at him.

So. It's a she – and she is exactly as alluring and dangerous as Marcus always imagined. She doesn't seem to have realised whom she's looking at – or if she has, the illusion of her body language is perfect. While Marcus stares like a damn fool, she has the whole bar eating out of the palm of her hand, swaying with her into the highs and purring at the sensual lows. She is astonishing – and Marcus really needs to find out who she works for. Just because she helped him once does not mean that she won't double-cross him the next time if he doesn't fit in with her plans – which is what happened last time. He doesn't kid himself. She let him do her dirty work while she swanned in after him and helped herself to the spoils, and he hadn't realized until it was far too late.

The song ends, and she bows to rapturous applause and yells of approval from the foreigners in the crowd. Marcus tenses, preparing to move – he doesn't want to take the chance of losing her in the throng. Which is, of course, exactly what happens, and he'll be damned if he knows _how_. He could have sworn he was right behind her the whole time, but he stands outside in the slowly emptying street, alone with the flashes of neon and the soft pattering of rain against his face, most emphatically without his target.

"Shit," he swears under his breath. Just what is happening here? Has he unwittingly stumbled his team into the middle of a hostile op? Or – or is this all just a coincidence?

Marcus Johnson has lived for long enough now that he knows there is no such animal. Whatever happened here, it was deliberate, some taunt right under his nose. The question is, to what purpose?

"Yo, boss? Something wrong?"

Hill sidles up next to him, sharp eyes casing their surroundings despite her intoxication. Maybe out of all the agents Marcus has recruited so far, Maria Hill is the one he would most trust to have his back. Not because he doesn't trust the others, but because Maria has a core of steel to her. She is utterly uncompromising. She never flinches at pointing out issues with the plan, or with the decisions of her handlers and higher-ups, even though it makes her unpopular with a certain type of agent. The others on this team are reckless, still possessed of that mixture of worldliness and naiveté, brash belief that they'll always come out on top, that their boss would lead them straight. Maria, for all that she is the youngest on the team, is the only one who understands what it's like, being Marcus in this environment.

All of which means that if he tries to put her off now, fabricate some half-truth to distract her, she'll give him one of her special patented brand of looks that don't so much skirt insubordination as lean into it without a net. Oh, she'll do as he asks, but she'll make it very clear just what she thinks about his bullshit. Behind his back, the rest of the squad square off into the night, not even the slightest stumble betraying just how much booze they've all had. Damn, Marcus is so proud of them all, he doesn't know what to do with it.

"It could be nothing," he says slowly.

The squad doesn't move.

"But it's not nothing, is it, sir?" Melinda's voice is quiet, and it isn't really a question.

"Probably," he agrees. "The redhead that was just on the stage, I assume y'all got a good look at her?"

"And some," Blake drawls. Without having to check, Marcus knows the other fledglings are smirking in a way that would have 'x-rated' slapped all over it in a flash.

"She's a hostile operative. Or was, the last time I ran into her."

"Codename?" Sitwell demands.

Marcus shrugs. "Fucked if I know. She didn't stop long enough to chat. She did swipe highly classified military plans from under my nose while I thought I was saving Tokyo from a burgeoning gang war. She's real good."

Maria makes a noise in the back of her throat. Her face, when he swivels to glare at her, betrays nothing, but that doesn't the least bit mean that she isn't laughing at him on the inside. Damn it.

"Do we need to be concerned?" Coulson asks evenly. Always his back-up plan man, Coulson. Full of secret passages and misleading entrances.

It's possible that Marcus is a little bit more drunk than he'd thought. He sighs, shrugging again and stretching his neck to loosen the tension in his spine. "Naw, Cheese. Come on, let's get back to base."

" _Cheese?_ " Coulson demands, sounding torn between outrage and flattery that he merits a nickname. Marcus knows his people, oh yes he does. With these agents at his back, he thinks he could handle anything anyone threw at him.

He pokes his hands in the pockets of his leather duster and turns west, in the direction of the barracks where they are supposed to be fast asleep right now, and tries not to laugh at the others ribbing Coulson and Coulson snarking back. In his right pocket, something soft and a little crumpled brushes the tips of his fingers, fitting itself into his palm. He notices, because he'd made damn sure there was nothing in said pockets before they left – certainly nothing to incriminate him as a member of a specific organization, if his squad's usual luck held and they landed themselves in trouble.

Lagging behind a step, he pulls it out. It's a napkin from the karaoke bar, artfully folded into a five-pointed star. Marcus hesitates, then pulls apart the edges, turning it over. On the back, in the same shade of lipstick as she wore, is one word:

  


"What the hell?" he mutters, turning the soft paper over and over in his hands, but there's nothing else, no further clue. Who _is_ this woman? And how the fuck did she slip him that paper without him noticing?

"That from her?" Maria says at his elbow. Marcus just about manages not to jump aside. Shit, she's getting good at this.

"Yeah," he says, letting her take it out of his fingers despite – or maybe because of the stab of highly inappropriate reluctance. She scrutinizes it through narrow eyes, scuffs her nail over the lipstick trace, then brings it to her face and sniffs it.

"High quality stuff," she concludes, sounding grudgingly impressed. "Smudge-proof, too. Definitely someone who thinks a lot about their appearance and what it projects."

Great. Now Marcus will need to add a lipstick obsession to his mental tally of 'stop thinking about that, no seriously'. It's getting to be a long damn list – and the fact that at least a dozen of the items on it are maybe-hostile-yet-unbearably-sexy-operative-related rankles. He hasn't been this fixated on another person – maybe ever. He's not sure he's enjoying the new experience.

He doesn't reply to Maria who, to his relief, decides to take the hint and leaves it alone. Marcus trudges after his huddle of baby agents, brooding and drunk just enough to not care.

_Reach for what?_

\---

**3\. Tokyo, 1992**

There is nothing, _nothing_ in the world as capable of breaking a human spirit in two as watching a loved one being hurt, or dying in front of your eyes, and knowing there is absolutely nothing you can do to help them. In the case of violent death, the guilt triples with the age-old adagios of being too late, too slow, too weak to help them.

How does he know this? Because the crumpled shape of his father is lying there, in the middle of the dojo's tatami mats, broken and still bleeding sluggishly, evidence of the last few beats of Nick Fury Senior's heart remaining for his son to find. As a final insult, the dojo is still and silent now, reminding Marcus that he has been one step behind on this case from the very start – just like he has always been one step behind the brilliant man who was his father. SHIELD had dropped the ball appallingly in the past year, so thoroughly that Marcus wouldn't have thought it possible – but the death of not just one of their own, but a founding member of the organization, is enough to throw even SHIELD out of whack. And it definitely hasn't helped to have Tony Stark floundering in the debris of his father's life, the inheritance he left his only son – all the more because Tony had no idea of the depth and breadth of his old man's involvement in a number of highly classified pies.

Officially, neither Nick nor Marcus are supposed to be anywhere near this place. Howard Stark's death had been ruled an accident, aided and abetted by the level of alcohol found in his bloodstream. But Nick Fury is—was—neither born yesterday, nor bothered pretending not to be a paranoid bastard. He'd suspected something, and in typical fashion hadn't felt like sharing with anyone – not even with his own son, apart from the mysterious message to get on a plane and meet him here.

And he'd been _right_. On the floor above his head, a familiar symbol oozes into the night, enough to freeze the blood in Marcus' veins. He knows this many-headed monster, has spent hours upon hours digging through World War II history books and old SHIELD files, especially concerning the period in the wake of Operation Paperclip. He was probably the only member of SHIELD relieved when Zola had kicked the bucket at last, gone to get his just desserts at the hands of Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes. And now, here was some upstart, piece of shit, neo-Nazi organization trying to take up where Cap cut the body in half, never mind the damned heads. Worse, they have gotten through SHIELD's security, and managed to take out Howard Stark, making the world that much more chaotic and complicated.

Now, they have also taken out the only man in the world that Marcus trusted. The only man who always, _always_ had his back, no matter what it cost him. Those fuckers are going to _pay_.

Marcus swallows down the lead weight in his chest and searches his father's body for any clues about his play. The pockets of his dad's black wool coat are empty, just like he'd always taught Marcus – but no one would have known about the inner pouch tucked away above Nick's right kidney. Marcus turns the body on its side, pawing through the drenched blackness for the waterproof flap. There is something firm inside that catches at his fingertips, and Marcus bares his teeth to the night in savage satisfaction. Those bastards had not known with whom they were fucking. Marcus tugs out the rectangular leather zip-up wallet, sliding back to sit on the floor before opening it as cleanly as he can. Inside: an ID, not one Marcus has seen before. It's got his face on it, though, even if the name is something that Marcus has never gone by before (too wary of favouritism accusations in a world that was already biased against an upstart black kid playing a good old white boy's game). _Nicholas Fury_ , it reads. Not Level 8 Agent, but _Director of SHIELD_.

 _Reach,_ Marcus thinks wryly. His father was the only person outside his squad who knew about that night, the only one Marcus had told about his second encounter with his crafty red-headed opponent, a war goddess playing with puny mortals for entertainment. So this was his father's message. This is what he must become – not a former asset, not a sometime-handler to a herd of semi-feral baby agents, but the head of SHIELD itself. Nick Fury Sr. had been the Agency's best strategist for over two decades, on par only with Howard Stark at his most focused. He must have seen something – something to lead them here, and onwards; though what it was, Marcus would never know.

God, he would miss his father like a phantom limb, forever.

"I love you, Dad," he whispers, closing Nick's unseeing eyes and staggering upright. Then, he turns his back on the body and walks away, slipping out of the dojo's changing room window and up into the night. His father had died in the field, on an op that was not even remotely sanctioned, and classified for the eyes of one person only – there would be no retrieval of the body, no respectful ablutions, no memorial service or coffin vigil. As of this moment, Nicholas Fury Sr. ceased to exist. In his place, Nicholas Fury Jr., dropping the suffix to an initial only from here on in. His father, much like Tony Stark's, had left him a legacy that Marcus – that _Nick_ would spend the rest of his life honouring to the best of his ability.

He really should have started right then. A distracted agent is a dead agent, how often had Major Carter drilled that into his head? How many times has he repeated it to his own agents? A distracted Nick Fury is damn useless to anyone. The wire catches him at the ankle just as he makes to jump from one roof to the next, and Marcus Johnson, star pupil of SHIELD's Ops Academy and known to be as agile as a cat, goes flying. Nick manages to twist mid-air and land on his feet at least, crouching in the sudden light, arms up and ready to defend him. He finds himself in the middle of a snow-covered Zen garden, tucked away at the back of a beautiful temple and hemmed in by seven-feet-high walls. The snow amplifies the glow of the gibbous moon, bumping it to full-moon intensity. Above, windows snap open and black-clad figures land noiselessly around him, nearly invisible but for the shadows they throw. Four, five, six, eight katana blades glint in the light, pointed unerringly in his direction.

Not good. Not good at all. Why is it always in Japan that he lands himself in the worst kind of messes?

" _Anata dare?_ " the closer figure demands, bringing the katana's hilt up to his chest as if preparing to lunge forward and skewer him.

"Uh, _tsu-risuto desu_ ," Nick bleats, trying with all his might to play the American idiot tourist who lost his way. Maybe he could manage to bluff his way out of this? He's got a gun tucked away in an ankle holster, but a) bringing a gun to a sword fight is all well and good, but these boys look like they know what they're doing; and b) by the time he gets it out, he might not have a head left to make the decisions. "I got lost," he continues weakly. "I practice parkour? I thought it'd be a nice stroll in the moonlight, except I seem to have tripped on something. Um. I apologize profoundly for having caused you any trouble, and I can go now?"

The figures don't move, but they do share a confused glance.

" _You think he's after her?_ " a figure in the middle asks in Japanese. Marcus has learned just enough over the years to be of use to Nick – it had seemed prudent, seeing as how he seems to be cursed to fail the worst in this country.

" _He seems like an idiot,_ " another figure jeers. Excellent, Nick loves arrogant fuckers. Their egos do half his job for him.

" _Damare!_ " the man at the center of the formation snaps furiously.

" _Hai, Senpai!_ " the two assholes echo, tensing. " _moushiwake gozaimasen!_ "

Rapid Japanese follows from their leader: something-something-detain, something-prisoner, something-something-something-test-her.

As soon as the pronoun registers, Nick knows he shouldn't think it. He knows that it's ridiculous, and that he's distracted enough without those kinds of thoughts stomping all over his brain – but damn it if he hasn't developed a Pavlovian response to risky situations in Japan, and he absolutely cannot stop the anticipation from rising through him, stirring something under his breastbone that has no business being there at all.

Two of the minions melt back towards the temple, reappearing after five minutes of stony, glaring silence with a slight, pale figure between them. She has a dirty mop of icy blond curls on her head, and is dressed only in a dirt-stained kimono, but when she looks up at him with those sharp, knowing aquamarine eyes, even with the cut in her lower lip and her bruised cheekbone, there is no mistaking it. It's her.

" _You wanted a chance to prove yourself?_ " the leader says in bored, contemptuous tones. " _I have decided to be generous. Kill him._ "

She bows her head sharply and squares her shoulders, a determined ghost in the reflected light.

"May I have a weapon?" she murmurs, keeping her eyes on the snow-covered ground. She doesn't ask who he is, or what he has done to deserve his death. Nick can't help but wonder if she would have asked, had he been anyone else. Then again, though her expression is perfectly bland and obedient, her eyes glint in the dim light, holding all the words she doesn't voice.

The leader sighs like he already regrets giving her a chance. He barks an order, and one of his underlings rushes forward, offering her the hilt of a plain but serviceable katana that she takes without hesitation.

Nick debates how to play this. It seems to be a test for her rather than him – he has been dismissed as someone of no importance, which normally serves him just fine, except that in this case he would have to stand still and let her run him through, which he is in no mood for.

"Hey, come on, this is hardly fair," he whines, making a show of looking her up and down. She holds herself contained somehow, smaller than he remembers her. She is playing some game, that much is clear. (It won't occur to him until much later to wonder how exactly he'd known that, or what had made him so sure she wasn't playing _him_. Or why he'd thought that his best bet would be to play along.) Hm, let's see now... "You're giving the white girl sharp things like she knows what to do with them. At least make it a challenge."

Her eyes widen, locking on his. Nick wonders what he can possibly do that won't kill the bluff, but will clue her in that he knows exactly who she is. For some utterly insane reason, he trusts her. It isn't a decision he made, or the product of a critical mass tipping over. It's just – there. Has been for years, he realizes that now, even if he knows perfectly well that Maria would call him a damn fool for it and a lot worse besides. It scares the bejesus out of him, that he is consciously giving her this kind of power over him, but there is absolutely nothing he can do to counter it right now. His mouth quirks, flashing a canine. To anyone else, he knows he looks feral, eager for blood. The woman's nostrils flare, and her right eye twitches in the faintest wink. That will have to do.

A katana flies through the air towards him, landing at his feet. Nick stares at it and wonders what would happen if he bends over to fetch it, and in the process palms his gun. He may trust her to play along and do her part to get them out of this, but if he gives her a convenient easier option, she might just decide to take it. Dispensing with games, he nudges the toe of his boot under the blade and flips it into his right hand. The left slides the saya and holds it up, parallel to the blade. Never let it be said that he won't fight dirty at every opportunity.

" _Hajime!_ " the leader snaps, and the woman is moving like the wind, flying at him with gale force three at least. Just as he's starting to wonder if he'll have to run her through after all, she sinks to her shins in the snowy grass, slides under his guard, and buries the length of steel in the chest of the man standing behind him, all the way to the hilt.

The tableau freezes. The stricken man chokes wetly, the sound turning up at the end like a question he will never get to ask. Then he falls backwards, releasing the edge with a sucking slurp. Before the body has hit the ground, movement explodes in all directions. The leader screams in rage and rushes at them, his short, tightly-controlled steps betraying his level of skill. Making a split-second decision, Nick pivots and slams his katana up to block the three blades rushing for the woman's neck. It leaves a space at his side empty for her to twist through, swapping positions with him. Whoever she is, whoever she works for, seeing her move gives Nick complete faith in one thing: that she is infinitely better than him with a blade in her hand. She'll have to take on the real threat while he mops up the kiddies' table.

Even with his decision made, his back still prickles for the few minutes it takes him to focus on the familiar rhythm of fencing – attack, faint, back up, regroup, lunge forward again. He twists and turns in the fray, blocking a slice at his spine with his saya, which promptly gets cut in half; he throws away the useless piece and flips over, grabbing a discarded katana from the ground and taking the opportunity to slam his boot into one of the remaining goons' chin. He is a flurry of steel and desperation, grateful like never before to Jim Morita and Dum Dum Dugan for forcing him to learn how to fight with any long, sharp weapon he could get his hands on. In the fuzzy background, he sees flashes of light and dark grey dancing over the snow, forward and back, in and out of reach. He shoves his blade into his next-to-last opponent's neck, and doesn't pause to watch him drop his katana and claw at his throat before slumping onto his knees and keeling sideways. He side-steps another attack, throwing up both of his arms to block his opponent's swing – and watches as behind the man's shoulder, his unlikely rescuer stumbles and gasps in pain. Scarlet blooms like a cloud of ink across the shoulder of her light kimono, spreading outwards from the hole where an inch of steel pokes through, rusty-red. Her opponent gives her no time to recover, slamming the heel of his hand into her face and sending her head snapping back. More red arcs through the air as she staggers.

Which is when Nick receives one of the most important lessons in his life – eyes open and focused on the target, because you can't do fuck-all to help anyone else if you're dead. Pain lances through his head, unimaginable, impossible to bear. He drops the katana in his left hand, screaming as he scrabbles at his face, blinded and retching when hot liquid bathes his palm. For the next fifty years, he knows he will wake up shaking from the remembered displacement of air against his throat as he jerks back, stabbing upwards with all he has. The katana sinks into something solid and unyielding, and is yanked out of his hand when the body drops at his feet. Nick paws frantically at his right eye, clearing it enough to see the woman straddling the leader, hands braced on the pommel of the katana sunk deep into the man's chest and probably three inches into the frozen ground for good measure.

She staggers upright the next moment, looking at him through eyes unclouded by the pain he knows she must be in. They widen when they land on his face, and Nick lets himself acknowledge for the first time that he has definitely not made it through this skirmish the same man he'd been going in. Loss seems to be the theme of the night, one aching much more deeply than the other. Nick sways, his legs folding under him.

Hands break his fall, small but shockingly strong, just like their owner.

"You just ruined two weeks of deep cover infiltration," he is tartly informed while he is straightened onto his feet again. "The least you can do is not make me carry you out of here on top of it."

The dry, impertinent tone does the rest of the job, and Nick feels the ground steady itself under him.

"Sorry," he says levelly. "You coulda left me to fend for myself."

"Yes," she agrees, boosting herself onto the roof and jumping hopscotch-style over several tiles. More tripwires, Nick assumes, doing his best to mimic her moves. His left eye is completely useless, and he tries not to move his eyelid too much because sweet Jesus, it hurts like a motherfucker. He has a nasty feeling that he's going to lose that – and for what? To help some anonymous woman not get skewered?

...Come to think of it, it doesn't sound like too high a price to pay. Bodies heal; the dead stay dead. And for some unnamable reason, Nick isn't ready to let Death take this one just yet.

She leads him over terraces and roofs, smooth and agile on her feet despite the growing red stain down her right shoulder. Nick follows, because frankly, what the hell else can he do? They have left eight Yakuza members dead on the ground, along with more than just traces of their blood. They need to regroup, and figure out a plan, and get the hell out of the country before the rest of the Family comes after them. Finally, after what feels like an hour crisscrossing south-east Tokyo's rooftops – they have been across the river at least twice – the woman ducks through an open window at the top floor of what looks like a second-hand bookstore/antique dealer.

Nick doesn't take the time to look around. He's still bleeding, he feels nauseous and exhausted enough to weep, and he has doubts his legs would carry him a minute longer than absolutely necessary. The room they stop at is wide but cluttered, every corner taken up by boxes or some kind of furniture. That's all he manages to take in, because the next second the woman sways and folds in on herself, collapsing face-first to the wooden floor. Nick doesn't manage to catch her – his newly ruined depth perception will be hell to adjust to – but he pushes her gently over on her back and peels away the sodden fabric, sucking a sharp breath of air at the sight of the gaping wound. How she managed to get all the way here without keeling over, he has no idea.

"Do you have medical supplies?" he says quietly, not knowing whether the building is empty and unwilling to risk it.

"Case... in the top drawer... of the left cabinet," she grates out. Her eyes are closed and her face is deathly pale. She desperately needs rehydration, and probably a blood transfusion, but there's no way either of them will risk the hospitals here, no matter how anonymous.

Nick pads quickly over to the indicated space. It takes him two tries to grab the drawer handle, for which he will blame fatigue for as long as he can get away with. Inside it is a giant, impressively well-stocked first aid case. Nick carries it over to her side and props it open.

"This is gonna need stitches. Not just the paper kind, either," he observes mildly.

She rolls her eyes. "You think I don't know that? Just get it done. I assume you know how to sew, Mister Secret Agent Man?"

Nick glares at her, reluctantly amused. "Damn right I do," he grouches, ripping over the packaging of a curved surgical needle and unspooling the accompanying thread. "I took Home Ec and everything. Got any painkillers you wanna take?"

She looks, for a moment, like she desperately wants to say yes. Then her eyelids flicker and she sighs. "Nope," she says. "Come on, I don't have all night."

Nick thinks he wants to argue, but she's kinda right. They don't have the time for this. He tears open an antiseptic wipe and cleans the wound as best he can, then uses another to take off at least a layer of grime off his hands. Pressing the edges together with thumb and forefinger, he pushes the needle through her skin. It puckers and pulls, fighting the penetration, just like any other Nick has ever had to do this to, no matter how pale and translucent-looking. Much like her, it's a lot tougher than anyone imagines.

By the tenth stitch, she has mercifully passed out. Nick finishes off a lot faster, now that half of his attention isn't on her face, the strain at the corners of her eyes and mouth. He pats a dressing tightly around the cut, unable to resist stroking over the cotton surface just that once, making sure it stays. Why does he even care? He shouldn't. Because of her, because he trusted her, he's lost an eye tonight.

\--No. Because _he chose_ to trust her. She did nothing to influence with the choices he made, and he can't heap the blame for that onto her head, much as he might like to. Besides, the eye – yeah, it feels like his head is sliced in half, and he can barely breathe for wanting to keen with the pain, but it still has _nothing_ on the hollow agony in his chest at the knowledge that he failed tonight. He failed his father, and he failed SHIELD. The loss of an eye is a fitting punishment for being so blind to the danger floating insidiously around him.

"Don't touch that," she rasps, and Nick becomes aware of two things – that she's awake again, and that he has been ghosting his fingers over and over the split eyelid on the left side of his face, barely touching the skin. He has no idea what he looks like. He should probably find a mirror and get this guessing game over with.

Her fingers close around his wrist, warm and secure. She draws his arm down, touching gentle fingers to the skin under his eyebrow. She presses in, and he lets out a whimper that sounds way too close to a sob for his liking.

"The eye's gone," she remarks evenly, an agent stating a diagnosis they both already know. "The blade cut right through the cornea and iris. You won't be able to see out of it again."

Nick sighs. "Yeah. I figured. Anything to be done?"

She shakes her head. "I can wash it with some eye solution, but I think your best bet would be slapping a dressing over it and sending you back to your people..."

Nick shakes his head at her obvious play for information. "Nice try. Do what you can, and I'll be out of your hair. I'll fly straight out on the red-eye."

She smirks. It's incredibly distracting, even in her tired face. Her lips are pale and pouty, and she looks strangely vulnerable without her usual red lipstick. Her touch is gentle on his face, and Nick finds himself sagging onto the floor, suddenly so tired he's shaking.

"What made you crash my party, anyway?" she asks softly, while her right hand tips his face up and her left drizzles solution into his eye, washing blood down his cheek. "It wasn't a complicated tripwire. You should have been fine."

He sighs. How much to tell?

"I was distracted. I'd just found – my SO was murdered earlier tonight."

Out of the corner of his good eye, he sees her wince. "You liked him?"

The fact that she asks speaks volumes about her own relationship with whoever she works for. Nick finds himself wanting to take her in, give her a better chance than she's getting. Then again, she has never asked for one. Never been anything but one hundred percent competent and capable, even when skewered through the shoulder. It would be an insult to assume she wants the out.

"Yeah," he replies wearily. "Yeah. I did."

For a second, grief presses over him, crushing his chest. He blinks and sucks in a breath, forcing it into his lungs even if it catches in his throat.

"Then I'm sorry," she says gently.

Her fingers pat gauze over the cut, while Nick clenches his teeth.

"Look, you got a name?" he asks. He doesn't mean for it to come out so harsh, but it's that or start crying, and this is better.

The corner of her mouth lifts. "I got a lot of names. Which one would you like?"

His teeth hurt from grinding. Suddenly, he's inexplicably, furiously angry.

"Why the fuck do I keep running into you? Are you stalking me? Who do you work for? _Who the hell are you?_ "

She is quiet as she finishes her work and tapes a clean piece of gauze over his eye.

"Call me Natasha," she says at last. "Natasha Romanov."

"Is that your real name?" he asks, the fight going out of him at the calm, direct look in her eyes.

She tilts her head, cocks an eyebrow. "As real as it gets."

"Gonna tell me who you work for?" he asks, even though he knows the answer already; she just smiles, acknowledging the sentiment, if not the question.

He sighs wearily, looking up at the dark ceiling. "Fine," he huffs. He lifts a hand to his face, forgetting himself for just long enough to make him flinch when he rubs at the pounding ache. "Don't tell me. I'm Nick, by the way. Nick Fury."

His good eye is closed, so he has no idea what her face looks like, only hears the amusement in her voice when she says, "Pleasure, I'm sure," in that deep, husky purr of hers. He still has absolutely no idea what is going on here, but for the first time since he saw his father's body what feels like a week ago, Nick's gut unclenches. There are still things worth fighting for, it seems.

"Well, Natasha, next time, how about we just go to dinner or something? Maybe drinks? How 'bout we meet someplace where I don't get shot at or stabbed, I'd really like that a lot."

Silence. Nick opens his eye, and looks at the empty room, the first aid kit lying open beside him the only evidence that another person was ever here.

"Shit," he whispers, looking heavenwards and regretting it when his left eye screams at him. "Goddamn spies." He has no idea where he is, other than still in Tokyo, where he definitely should not be. He wants nothing more than to lie back and fall into the dreamless sleep that beckons – but he knows there is no way he should do that. So instead, he disposes of the DNA evidence the two of them have left between them, stashes the kit away, and starts to edge out of the window again.

Except.

He sighs loudly. "Marcus Nicholas Johnson, you damn fool," he mutters, shaking his head at himself. Nevertheless, he takes out a white square of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket, then fishes around in the drawers of the antique desk by the window until he unearths a pen that works. He scribbles a number on the back of the card, a pager that connects through to an answering service he and his father have been using for years to pass on messages. He debates whether to write anything more – 'I owe you,' 'call me,' 'anytime,' – but in the end, he thinks better of it. He has made enough of an idiot of himself for one night. He places it in the first aid kit, behind the eyewash, so that only a corner pokes out. She'll know what it means.

 _"Reach!"_ indeed.

\---

**4\. Kyoto, 2002**

"Hello, Nick."

Nick's hand freezes above the light switch as his heart trips in his chest. The room is lit only by the city's lights glinting through the open curtains; in the thick shadows of the farthest corner of the room, something moves.

Seconds pass, and Nick keeps breathing, and not leaking from numerous bullet and/or stab wounds. Fuck it, he'll take that as a reason to trust. Besides, he knows that voice.

"I," he announces wearily, "am too old for this shit."

He flicks on the light, entirely unsurprised to find Natasha sitting comfortably in his armchair, right leg crossed over her left knee and arms braced flat on top of the armrests as she smiles at him. Not that the show of harmlessness means a damn thing – he is certain that she could kill him with any twenty things found in his hotel room right now, and that's not counting the actual weapons he has stashed around the place.

Her smile slips into a teasing, pleased smirk as she slowly looks him up and down. "Aw, come now," she purrs. "You're not old, sugarpops."

Nick winces. "Never call me that again. And I am too. I even look old. Which isn't something I can say about you; Christ, woman, you don't look a day older than you did in '72."

"Actually, by my calculations, I've got about thirty years on you."

"Shockingly, this doesn't make me feel better," he grouses, walking further into the room and settling on the sofa across from her. He doesn't ask her what she meant; after all this time, he has learned to believe the evidence of his eye over the voice in his head telling him certain things should not be possible. More often than not, his eye won that fight.

Silence reigns for a long, strangely peaceful moment. Nick feels more relaxed right now than he has the past decade – almost since the last time he saw her. Coulson's right. There is so much wrong with him.

"So. You rang? And why Japan? I don't like Japan. Nothing nice ever happens to me in Japan."

Her mouth twists into a slow, teasing smile.

"Nothing nice?" she murmurs.

"No," Nick growls, and ignores the fact that they both know he doesn't really mean it.

"Nick, I'm hurt. We had some good times."

She can't keep the pout, cracking up in the face of his incredulous look. Head thrown back, neck bared to the room – carefree is a good look on her. He thinks he'd enjoy seeing more of it.

"How've you been anyway? I see the eye healed up all right."

"Yeah, eye's fine. I've been all right. You know, the usual – got married, got divorced, got shot at a few dozen more times than I'd have liked. As you do."

"She couldn't handle the bullet holes, huh?"

"It was more the late nights and one-too-many cancelled plans and missed anniversaries, really."

"Not easy, making a marriage work when your first wife's the job."

"You'd know."

"I would know, yes."

"What, you telling me there's a failed marriage in your closet, too?"

She makes a show of thinking about it, mouth scrunching adorably. "Three, actually," she says in the end, laughing at Nick's raised eyebrows.

"Damn, Romanov, you're hell on men. Speaking of, I got your package. A little warning might have been nice."

"Where would be the fun in that?"

Her smile is evil. Nick should not be enjoying himself so much.

"Seriously, what, you allergic to phones? I left you my number. Generally means I'd like it if you called."

"Oh," she says, giving him huge, innocent blue eyes, like he'd fall for that again.

"You hurt my feelings, you know," he says. He's laying it on a little thick, but her eyes are dancing. She's having as much fun as he is.

"Well, I'm here now."

"Uh huh. And why is that, exactly? Got more strays for me to adopt? 'Cause I gotta tell you, I don't need any new ones. Still breaking the old ones in."

"Barton seems to be settling in nicely," she agrees, just as the door blows inwards and the man in question crouches in the opening, bow drawn. He nearly drops it the next second, looking gobsmacked.

" _Nat?_ " he demands, somewhere between shocked and defensive.

"Hey, Clint," she says cheerfully. Nick notices that she doesn't move to wave, though. Not as carefree as she appears.

Clint Barton straightens, putting the bow and arrow away with smooth, practiced movements that nevertheless broadcast his hesitation. It's extremely revealing to see how his caution dials down once Coulson slips into the room at his back, nudging him further in so he can close the door behind them.

"When you said, 'Bring her in,' I didn't realize you'd be taking an active role in this operation, sir," Coulson deadpans, eyes sliding between Natasha and him.

"Neither did I," Nick grumbles. She's got a knack for screwing up his plans, that woman.

Barton crosses his arms over his chest, glowering. Nick has never seen him this unsettled, and in the five years since he was as good as dumped on their doorstep, hissing furiously and itching to make a run for it, Nick has sent him against meta-humans and mutants and giant radiation-grown bug things. Natasha Romanov is apparently scarier than all of those combined.

Coulson sighs, shaking his head. Seemingly without thought, he puts his hand on Barton's shoulder, thumb digging soothing circles into the muscle. Barton's rigid, battle-ready stance loosens, tension melting from his frame. Nick looks between the two men, asset and handler, with something a lot like resignation. He has known Cheese for a good two decades, and in all that time, he can count on one hand the number of times he has seen him this open and comfortable with another agent – certainly not while sober, and _never_ on an op.

"Barton, what the fuck have you done to my Head of Operations?" he demands.

Barton looks like a deer frozen in the headlights, turning wide eyes on Coulson and shrinking back as if terrified of breaking him. Coulson rolls his eyes and sighs, squeezing down on the shoulder still under his hand to keep Barton in place.

"With all due respect, sir, you're one to talk. Not all of us want to end up as miserable old farts."

Barton chokes. Nick can't help noticing the way he leans into Coulson's touch again, reassured that—what? That his handler won't kick him out in the dark to fend for himself? That something he'd dreaded hadn't come to pass after all?

Damn it. They'd had to go and fall in love on him.

"Watch it, Cheese," he says peevishly, narrowing his eye on them.

Coulson, damn him, just cuts his eyes between him and Natasha still lounging serenely in her seat.

"I am watching," Coulson says meaningfully.

Nick glares. He knows for a fact that it's no less intimidating with one eye than it was with two – more, even, depending on his audience. Natasha doesn't volunteer a thing, choosing instead to mock him with her smirk. He kind of wants to let her ride him into the ground, or just listen to her sass him for the rest of his life.

"…I have no idea what's going on," Barton confesses. With his blond, messy hair, those piercing eyes, and the look of a cherub in trouble, it's no wonder even his hardass Head of Ops is smitten.

Coulson smiles out of one corner of his mouth. It's neither friendly, nor reassuring. It looks like a tiger preparing to bite.

"I think you'll find, Barton, that you just landed yourself a partner," he says mildly.

Oh, _hell_ no. Nick opens his mouth to veto the idea immediately, when Barton's expression clears up and he grins.

"Oh! I thought you'd try and make me kill her. That would've been ugly. No, running ops with Nat is gonna be _fun_."

Nick feels his blood pressure spike again, a stabbing ache in his bad eye. This is gonna end in tears, he just knows it – but the idea is too tempting not to try it. Barton alone is an asset Nick would have given his left arm to recruit. Barton and Natasha together? He'd happily sacrifice his right.

"Not it," Coulson says quickly, touching his nose. Nick's eye swivels malevolently to his face.

"You'll take 'em and be happy, you utter shit. You've been a pain in my ass for far too long. Time to repay the favour."

"That's not what the pain in his—"

"Finish that sentence, Barton, and it'll be the couch until Christmas."

"But it's January!" Barton protests pitifully.

"Exactly," Coulson confirms, merciless.

"You're no fun," Barton grumbles. Nick feels his right eye twitch.

"You'll take me in?" Natasha asks quietly.

The atmosphere, aggravatingly insubordinate but pleasant none-the-less, abruptly shifts.

"And that's our cue," Coulson says, tugging Barton backwards towards the door. "We'll let you _hammer_ out the details, boss."

"I hate that man," Nick muses when the door closes behind Coulson's suit-clad back.

"No, you don't," Natasha says gently, smiling. "You like Hill more, but you don't hate any of your agents."

"Do too," Nick replies, just to be an ass. Natasha doesn't rise to the bait; instead, she sits there, observing him with those clear, bright eyes that had been his undoing from the moment he first saw them.

"Just like that?" she asks. It's not about any agents, or Nick's alleged dislike thereof.

He sighs.

"What do you want me to say, Natasha? You know I trust you. Even though everyone thinks I'm a damn fool for it, I trust you to do the job that's in front of you. You're gonna have to come clean about your past, though. I might be Director, but even I have to answer to the higher-ups."

Natasha shrugs carefully. "I've got no love lost for my erstwhile masters. I'd cross them off myself, if there was much left to bother with. The KGB's gone. What has taken over is a bunch of fools with delusions of grandeur, and if I'm going to be telling lies, I need a better reason why I should."

Nick stares her down, looking for cracks. "There's gonna be a lot of lying," he cautions. "Things you can't know. Things we'll need to piece together like a jigsaw from nothing more than two pieces of the frame and a pixelated picture of the lid. You sure you've got the patience to step out of the field once in a while?"

Natasha smiles. Nick is surprised to see the flash of relief in her eyes, something she wouldn't have let him see before, he is certain.

"That sounds like fun," she admits. "And working with Team Charlie promises to be interesting, to say the least."

"God help me," Nick groans, letting his head hit the back of the sofa. "I'm not sure the budget can survive the three of you."

He hears a rustle of clothing opposite him, and wonders if this is when she sticks him through with a stiletto, now that his guard is down and he is open and vulnerable like a steamed clam. The last thing he expects to feel is the warmth of a body in close proximity, thighs sliding to rest over his, slim arms braced on his shoulders. He opens his eye, breathless all of a sudden and reeling from the sight of her astonishingly beautiful face so close to his.

"What the hell are you doing?" he says quietly. His arms itch to close around her deliciously lithe, graceful body, but he digs his fingers in the leather of the cushions and braces himself to withstand the need.

Natasha smiles down at him, something in her eyes that had _definitely_ not been there before.

"Has it really been that long?" she teases, and Nick can't take that; not from her, not then.

"Natasha," he whispers. Just like that, the levity leeches from her expression, leaving behind something very much like tenderness. Nick wonders if he can trust it. He wonders if he can trust anything she shows him. But much like all those years ago, something in her crosses the distance between them and crawls under his skin, a knowledge he definitely shouldn't rely on but does nonetheless – that this here is who she is, free of agenda, no strategies running dozens of moves ahead. He knows he isn't supposed to trust that, but he does.

"Tell me if you don't want this," she says simply. "Tell me, and I swear I'll forget it."

"That sounds more like a threat than a promise," Nick muses ruefully. She grins, wide and bright, small, straight teeth shining from between her frosted-pink lips. She moves in like a dancer swaying to the music, a star responding to gravity's tug, and when she presses to him and kisses his mouth, Nick honestly thinks he is going to pass out altogether.

'Poisoned lipstick?' his mind wonders, but there's no nausea and feeling of wrongness, just a dizzying tingle of warmth spreading down his chest, through his stomach and into his groin.

"Why?" he whispers, long minutes after she steals his breath like a thief in the night.

"Because I want to," she says evenly, direct and upfront as always when it matters.

Nick bites back the question that really bothers him, because he has a feeling that if he says the words 'obligation' and 'payment', she really will stab him. So he takes her at face value, like he always has this far. He's still alive, isn't he? That's proof enough of intent in any book.

When she kisses him again, whatever hesitation, whatever questions he had left are gone. Her mouth is demanding, hot and insistent, tongue slipping between Nick's lips to tangle with his. She is a master at this, too – lust laces through his body when she tips her head, taking and giving at once, an illusion of surrender when really the reins are grasped tightly in her small, steady hand. Nick thinks he'll go mad if he doesn't touch her.

His fingers ache when he uncurls them from their vicious grip on the sofa and moves them to her waist, the slim, tautly muscled length of her torso. Slight she might be, but weak – that misconception only lasts until you land your hands on her, feel the way muscles twist under your wandering touch. Her hips move insidiously over his, so easily like she's in a yoga class doing Pigeon bends. The fabric of her deep gray t-shirt wrinkles in his grip when he slips his fingers under it, tracing the silk of her skin—and catching on a plaster tucked right under her left breast. It's a big square of gauze taped tightly down, invisible under her clothes.

"Natasha," he chides, lifting it up to see.

"It's just a cut," she says impatiently, widening her legs and rubbing herself more firmly against him. "Get your hand on my breast or down my pants right now, please."

"Impatient," he sighs, sliding his left hand up her thigh and inwards, thumb rubbing at the cradle between them. She arches like a cat, bearing down into the touch. The heat of her core is scorching even through the leather of his pants – or maybe even more pronounced because of it.

"Yes," she purrs breathlessly, the sound like pure distilled sex in Nick's ears. "More. Give me."

Caught in her urgency, Nick slips the zip of her jeans down and slides his fingers in the gap, tugging them off her ass as far as they'll go – the cut is skin-tight and unforgiving, and he wants to fucking rip them off and bury his head between her legs, take her in his mouth and make her scream.

Next time, then.

He nudges her up with hands and soft words, widening his working space. His left hand trails two fingers through the crease of her body, picking up a trace of wetness – nowhere near enough yet. He pulls them out again and sticks them in his mouth, getting them wet and chasing the taste of her from the edges of his short nails. Natasha's pupils dilate shockingly, and she bites her lower lip, rocking over him insistently; he takes his fingers out only to have them replaced by her tongue, delving deep, possessing his mouth. Her moan vibrates across his teeth and palate when his hand finds its way back between her legs, zeroing in on her clit and giving it a firm, rolling rub. Nick's right hand, drawn as if by a magnet, rises up her body and curves over her breast, thumbing the tight nipple.

"Nice," she praises breathlessly when she pulls back, letting her neck arch when Nick fastens his mouth on it and sucks. "Damn vampire. That's gonna bruise."

"Do you care?" he asks, before licking over her pulse point.

"Not in the slightest. It'll heal soon enough, too."

Huh. Well, this is no time to think of all the secrets she's still keeping. She'll spill them soon enough. Right now, it's her body doing the talking – doing the yelling as it curves towards his, seeking friction.

"Fuck yourself on my fingers, come on," Nick murmurs, and Natasha doesn't need to be told twice. She rides him hard, arching her hips to encourage his fingers to slip inside her, his thumb taking over the job at the front. His wrist aches; his hand is going to cramp soon, if he keeps this up. It's been a long time since he'd exercised this particular skill. She is slick and hot and grips him mercilessly; the mere thought of his dick being where his fingers make headway is enough to make his balls tighten. He is going to come in his fucking pants like a horny teenager and he could not care less, not with this view in front of him.

"Bite my shoulder," Natasha directs, and Nick obliges, sinking teeth in the skin and worrying it gently. She jerks in his arms; her body tightens around him, and two snaps of her hips later, she is coming and making the kinds of sounds porn stars can only dream about producing.

"Excellent work," she says, laughing a little as she slumps forward with her face in his neck, licking at the bead of sweat Nick can feel rolling down. "A+, Director, would fuck again."

"Witch," he grumbles, clenching his jaw with the need to come on her, mark her stomach with his DNA.

"Mmm," she hums, taking his earlobe in her mouth and sucking for a minute before nipping it sharply. The sensation in his groin contracts, and he jerks against her, gasping. Her right hand trails down his body, sliding over his chest, his twitching abs, and lower, between her own legs. Her fingers make short work of the complicated fastenings of his pants, slipping inside to fist tightly around him. The strength in that hand is astounding, almost mind-breaking. She could incapacitate him with a well-placed twist. But it is her thumb rubbing over the head that he feels, her hand turning so it can nudge at the sensitive knot of nerves under the glans.

"You wanna come for me, Director?" she asks, her voice low and husky like that night in the karaoke bar, weaving around his head like a spell. "Your hands on my ass say 'yes'. Your dick says 'yes' even louder."

"Could you maybe refrain from laughing at me for five goddamn minutes," he grumbles, and she muffles her laugh in his mouth, fucks him with her tongue in the same rhythm as her hand slides over him, a little too dry and just this side of uncomfortable but good God, is it enough to bring him right to the edge.

"Come on, Nick," she cajoles. "Give it up for me. I want it. Next time, you can come in me. Maybe in my ass, even. Definitely in my pussy. That'll be nice. It's been a while since I've been filled like that. You'll like that, won't you, Nick? All tight around your dick while you shoot inside of me..."

Light explodes behind Nick's eyes as she yanks the orgasm out of him, leaves him useless and shaking and wrecked as she strokes him through it.

"Natasha," he croaks. She has ruined him for other women – if he's honest with himself, she'd done that long before touching him anywhere important.

"Oh, I like the way you sound after you've come," she says. He can hear the smirk in her voice, and damn if it doesn't make him want to get hard again.

"Damn it, woman, I can't keep up with you," he complains.

She favours him with a sardonic look. "Like you ever could."

"Gah. Spare me _some_ ego, I gotta deal with Coulson and Hill tomorrow."

Lips on his, warm and pliant. "Thanks," Natasha says, kissing his cheek, his temple, the scar over his left eye. "Thanks for sticking up for me."

"You know I got your back," he confesses, too honest. She could be the ruin of him, this quixotic, dangerous woman. Worse, she could be the ruin of SHIELD, and the scary part is, Nick can't even bring himself to care.

"And I've got yours."

\---

**5\. Kyoto, 2022**

"This is mutiny," Nick states flatly.

Natasha, luminously beautiful as always, smiles serenely from her spot reclining against the plush interior of the pick-up car.

"Are you getting in or not?" she asks calmly.

Nick sighs and slides into the almost insultingly comfortable seat. He should have known from the start that there was something fishy going on when Stark had offered to fly him to Japan in his private jet 'for maintaining your cover, Nick, God, you know this much paranoia isn't healthy, right?' And even before, when Cap had called him to request his assistance with a delicate matter more suited to Nick's specific skills. Captain America's earnest face should be classified as Grade A Offensive Weaponry.

"Where are we really going?" he asks sulkily. He is surrounded by traitors. He'd told them again and again that he didn't want a fuss made for his seventy-fifth ride around the sun – precisely _because_ of what a milestone it was. Nick had certainly never expected to live to see it – and yet he'd made it through the fall of SHIELD, had survived the Winter Soldier, and several alien self-proclaimed deities, and a trip to the other side of the galaxy as well as through time. And now here he is, having his own stubbornness taken advantage of. It's undignified.

"We are taking a break. Clint is already flying Tony's plane back, and Phil is under threat of sleeping on the couch for a month to not call you for a fortnight. Between him, Maria, Melinda, and the Avengers, they can handle whatever turns up. Contrary to your deep-seated conviction, the world isn’t going to end if you take a vacation."

"Nearly did the last time," Nick counters mulishly.

"And the others handled it." This is Natasha's 'humouring him' voice – a sure sign that a smack to the back of his head is fast approaching in his future. "You're going to spend two weeks out of the office even if I have to drug you and tie you to the bed."

"You're gonna do that anyway," he mutters, but his mood is starting to lift already.

"Maybe the second part. Kyoto's got enough booze to handle the first."

Nick looks at her, then out of the window at the buildings whizzing past as they drive down the street. They are heading right in the direction of a very familiar hotel.

"Agent Romanov, are you going soft on me?" he drawls, trying to mask with amusement the way his chest warms and his mouth won't stop trying to smile.

"No more than you did three years ago," she counters. He can hear the laughter in her voice, the fondness that always takes him by surprise, even after fifty years of knowing her—

Which is when he realizes that this is in fact their anniversary, too. Fifty years ago, two hundred and eighty-four miles away, Nick had first laid eyes on this extraordinary woman and lost what was left of his wits. If the most important night of his life isn't worth celebrating, what is?"

"You were turning one hundred years old," he says defensively, tracing his eye down her lovely face. He has given up trying to understand the chemistry of her body, and he loves every single new line that the passing time has etched into her skin. She still looks a youthful forty, and that is in the bright light of midday. At dusk, she is exactly the same woman who had ruined him for anyone else long ago.

She rolls her eyes, uncrossing her arms; her right hand slips across the seat and into his left. Cool metal strokes his knuckles, and he looks down at the simple platinum band he had given her what felt like a lifetime ago. When she wears it, it sits on her right ring finger, in the Russian Orthodox tradition; which comes in handy for flummoxing noisy teammates. As for Nick – if anyone was surprised when he turned up post-vanishing with a wedding band on his hand, they hadn't mentioned it.

After all, he was the one who trained them. If they needed to ask, they weren't pulling their weight.

"Maybe I didn’t want the fact I'm a centenarian drawn all that attention to," she says primly, in a glaring contradiction of her current actions.

"Hypocrite," he says. His thumb strokes across the back of her hand anyway. "How do you think I feel, when everyone thinks you're my middle-age crisis?"

"Suck it up, grandpa," she advises, smiling wickedly. "Steve's still got a few years on you, and it hasn't slowed him or Barnes down."

"That's because you're all freaks of nature. You know, Coulson offered to get me a Viagra prescription the other day. Me! Like him and Barton aren't a walking, talking dirty old men cliché!"

"Please don't talk to me about Barton and Coulson's OAP sex life," she groans. Nick narrows his eye on her to underline his point. He is _old_. Damn. When did that happen?

"I'll let you kick their asses when we go back."

" _Let_ me?"

"Fine, I'll encourage it vigorously, how about that?"

"Acceptable," she sniffs. Then she unbends enough to slide across the seat, tucking herself in his space and kissing his cheek. "You're still the sexiest man I know, Nick Fury," she purrs.

Well. Nick's dick has certainly failed to get the message that it isn't supposed to perk up so quickly anymore. Not that you'll find him complaining.

"My ego and I both thank you," he says, turning his head to catch her mouth. She still tastes the same, the smokiness of burnt sugar, the tanginess of desire. Her tongue is as demanding as always, engaging his in a familiar dance that sends spikes of heat down his spine. The ride is smooth, and he relaxes into it, lets her lead them in the same pattern that has defined their lives. He still trusts her more than anyone he ever has. He may not trust _himself_ a lot of the time, or what his feelings for her make him do, but Natasha, he has always been sure of. If his closest shave with death yet, at the hands of the Winter Soldier, had taught him anything, it's that Natasha is as loyal as they come; and she is loyal to _him_. Not SHIELD, not the US of A, but him. She will follow his lead in strategy just as he follows hers in tactics, without a second thought, and that tells him all he needs to know.

Nick has never believed in the whole soulmates spiel, but it's kinda hard to stay in denial when the evidence of what they are to each other is right before his eyes.

"With me?" she asks when she pulls back several breath-stealing minutes later, bestowing on him the double whammy of one of those soft, sweet, affectionate smiles that Nick cherishes above all in his life, and looking at him like he hung the damn moon.

Nick doesn't think Barnes and Rogers will begrudge him borrowing their catchphrase, just this once -- after all, it's not like they don't sell it stamped on t-shirts down at the Smithsonian these days.

"To the end of the line."


End file.
